Cover It All
by willshakespeare-immortalbard
Summary: SPOILERS FOR THE WARLOCK! Request fic: A mystery is revealed when Will does a little research, and if they're going to fight the battle coming up, they're going to have to solve it. Rated T for later violence, as I always end up adding. :  Please R/R!
1. Chapter 1

**A/N—I own nothing. Nothing at all. Michael Scott owns everything. **

**This is for Elycia-of-Arc, who's been asking for something new for a while. Thanks for everything! I hope you enjoy this, Elycia-of-Arc. **

**Summary: A nighttime excursion to the library of Danu Talis reveals a mystery that the Warriors have to solve if they can really fight the battle to come. **

* * *

><p><strong>Cover It All<strong>

No Archon technology illuminated the library. The flickering flame of the candle swayed seductively on the muralled walls, revealing bloody executions, low-lit love scenes, bitter rivalries of years gone by.

Will Shakespeare's hand trembled as he passed the image of a battlefield, full of fallen warriors, soaked in blood and tears.

A drop of simmering wax dripped from the candle, landing with an echoey splatter on the pristine floor. He recoiled, dancing away from the pooling liquid, repressing the frightened squeak that nearly burst from his chest.

He had to know. Had to know more—just a little more—about the half-golden figure who threatened everything they had ever known.

He reached the double doors, and stared up at them, his jaw dropping ever so slightly as he beheld their towering splendor.

Another drop of wax slipped to the floor, sliding down his finger on its way to the ground. He winced slightly at the pain, and stooped to the ground, setting the candle on the floor.

The doors refused to move.

He pushed, his feet sliding on the floor, narrowly missing the candle. Will ceased his attempts for a moment, quickly pushing the candle a little further away, and then he tried pulling.

He landed on his backside for his pains.

After about ten minutes of frustrated work, he stepped back, confronting the problem logically.

He didn't dare to use his aura. Who knew if he was being watched, or put on some sort of alert? He didn't want to find out.

That left physical strength. Will swore softly, cursing—not for the first time—his pitiable position in that area: 5'2" and 179 pounds wasn't nearly enough to move the doors, by any means.

Swearing a little louder, Will spun around, bending over for the candle, determined to go back and wake Palamedes.

Something caught his eye as he whirled around, and he stopped half-way, once again nearly upsetting the candle.

The emblem of an open, blank book was engraved—_no, burnt_—into the floor. Dark and blurred, it bore the obvious signs of having been implanted there with fire, and its careful centering before the doors clearly marked it as having been placed there on purpose.

Will crouched down, running his fingers over the emblem. The stone was smooth everywhere, another sign that it had been burnt, not carved, into the ground. As his fingers connected with the empty area of the blank page, he felt something tug at his aura, and, before his could pull his fingers away, a trickle of power was sucked from him, and the emblem glowed a bright lemon yellow.

He backpedaled, knocking the candle over. Wax poured over the floor, making his fingers sticky. The smell of lemons was sickeningly strong, and the corridor seemed to almost pulse with the yellow light.

The doors swung open, parting the glow like the black stroke of a paintbrush. Beyond the still pulsating emblem, high shelves towered in a somewhat menacing invitation.

Will collected his candle, and, after waiting a few moments, decided that the use of his aura hadn't set off any alarms. He let a little bit of power seep into the crumbling wick, and a tiny flame sparked.

He hopped over the emblem, too frightened of it to test its powers by walking over it. It seemed, as he crossed the threshold, that he heard a sort of growl, as if something had been angered by his entrance, but he ignored it.

The awe that the library filled him with made his legs weak and his head buzz.

He didn't hear the doors slide shut.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N—I own nothing. Nothing at all. Michael Scott owns everything. **

* * *

><p>"Eeeek!"<p>

With that very feminine, very embarrassing display of fear and disgust, Will dropped the scroll to the ground, where it rolled around in little circles, narrowly missing the _gigantic_ bug that had crawled out from the inside.

The scrolls were generally well-kept, but of no use to Will—the information they contained was relatively recent, or too old. In fact, it almost seemed as if there was a chunk missing—like a bite had been taken out of history.

Will stood still on the ladder, peering down at the ground below, where the scroll slowly ceased its revolution.

That one had been different. He'd sensed it. Why else had it been shoved in the very back of the highest shelf, like a princess locked away? Why else had it stuck to the stone, almost as if something had been clinging to it? Why?

He climbed down slowly; reluctant to reach the floor, which he had a feeling had to be crawling with bugs by now—how many had fallen from the older scrolls that he pulled out? At least twenty, he was sure. He shuddered.

Once on the ground, he stooped, picking up the scroll, ignoring the sticky feel of the parchment. It cracked a little as it opened, but stayed relatively unharmed.

He moaned.

Odd shapes—some fluid, some choppy—were scattered in a haphazard manner all across the scroll. Up, down, diagonal: there was no rhyme or reason. He didn't even recognize the language. Scanning the scroll, he found that the language changed constantly. One section was in the script he had already noticed, later parts seemed to be some sort of rune (not one he recognized, which ruled out Celtic and Icelandic), and some areas had absolutely nothing written on them at all.

Giving up, he was in the middle of snapping the scroll shut when something caught his eye, and he laughed aloud.

Cuneiform figures marched steadily along the sides of the scroll, the reddish ink shimmering with a light of their own.

It paid sometimes, he decided, to have Palamedes as a friend. One of the first things the Saracen Knight had done had been to teach Will the language of his youth. A quick scan of the figures revealed absolutely none that Will didn't at least vaguely recognize. Good. He grinned happily.

He sat down on the ground by his candle, desperately hoping that it would last long enough to let him read a little of the scroll.

_Warriors of the future...death...destruction...no one..._

When he finally pieced everything together, he felt sick.

_Warriors of the future: something I dared not tell you when we met, but something that I know that more curious of you will discover. The world is about to tremble beneath your feet—death and destruction will wreak havoc in this city. This is necessary. But there is more. _

_Soon your numbers will decrease. Soon some of you will disappear, perhaps to never be found. _

_This is a mystery that has defended Danu Talis since its beginnings. All those who threaten the safety of this world are taken. This mystery now puts the future in jeopardy. Solve it—destroy the monster that endangers the world's future. _

_The battle for Danu Talis begins now._

The scroll fell from his trembling fingers. His breath came in short gasps of terror. Something growled behind him, and a gust of hot breath almost blew him over. He spun around, and didn't even bother trying to be masculine in his reaction.

He screamed. Loudly.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N-I don't own this. It all belongs to Michael Scott.**

**This is a short chapter. Sorry...**

* * *

><p>"I swear, Palamedes, I'm not crazy."<p>

The Bard was pale and shaking, his glasses lopsided on his face, the nosepiece about an inch to the left of his long, pointed nose. He was covered in dust, and a scroll was clutched in his visibly trembling hand.

"What are you talking about?" Palamedes asked, breathing deeply, kicking aside the extinguished candle as he advanced further into the pristine library.

He'd been awoken by the Bard's frantic screaming, but when he had finally skidded into the library, sword drawn, he'd found nothing. Just Will, whose first words were now repeated as Will insisted,

"I swear, I _swear_ that I'm not crazy. I-I'm not. It was here."

"Will, what happened? What are you talking about?"

Will stamped his foot on the ground. "I don't _know_!" he shouted angrily. "I don't know. But it was _something_ and it was real." He sank onto the ground, still clinging to the scroll. Tears glittered in his pale eyes. "I'm not crazy. It was here."

"I know. I believe you. Just tell me what happened," Palamedes coaxed as he sat down by his friend.

"I went to the library. I don't trust this man, this Abraham. Not the way Francis and Joan seem to. There's something about him—maybe the fact that he's half _gold_. But there's something that I don't trust, and I just can't bring myself to go into battle without finding out what that something is. And...and I found it. A message from him."

Will shoved a piece of paper into Palamedes' hand. The knight quickly looked down at it, soaking in the words that had been scrawled on there in Will's messy Edwardian script.

"You translated this?" Palamedes asked. He could hear Scatty and the others approaching.

"Yes."

"From what?"

"Cuneiform."

"That rules out any chance of you being wrong, then." Palamedes smiled grimly, proud of his friend, of Will's amazing ability to learn everything and anything.

"I had just finished translating when _something_ attacked me. It was there! It was there, it was there, it was there!"

As Scatty, Francis, and Joan all rushed into the library, looking around in confusion, Will looked at Palamedes.

"I swear I'm not crazy."


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N-I don't own this. Everything belongs to Michael Scott.**

**Okay, so this chapter I don't really like that much. But I needed to just get moving with this, so I wrote something. I hope you guys like it!**

* * *

><p>Scatty tossed the paper onto the table in front of them, swearing loudly.<p>

"Splendid. We now have to solve a mystery."

Francis bent over and quickly perused the paper's contents. "Well, we know that Will's not crazy, at least. It's pretty obvious that the monster was going to take him."

"We are," Scatty conceded. "But that doesn't change the fact that we have to find the monster, which apparently doesn't want to be found, in order to solve a mystery that we don't even understand."

"Relax," Joan soothed, though whether she was talking to Scatty or the still panicked Bard no one knew.

"It was just _there_!" Will was ranting. "I translated the paper and suddenly it was there. Like magic. Like—no, it wasn't." Will's voice suddenly went wooden, and his pale eyes turned solemn. "It was there before."

"What?" Palamedes and Scatty both demanded, their voices loud with confusion. Will recoiled, wincing at the noise, and Palamedes lowered his volume, speaking to his friend like he would to a frightened animal.

"What do you mean?"

"I-When I entered the...the library, I heard a sound. A sort of growling."

Palamedes turned to Scatty. "Ring a bell?"

"Of course it doesn't, you idiot," Scatty snapped irately. "I was born after the fall of Danu Talis, remember?"

"There's no need to be that way," Will interjected, his fear forgotten in his anger at Scatty's brusque remark.

"Stop," Joan said, her voice never rising. "Don't start fighting, or you'll never stop."

"I heard it again," Will continued, though his blue eyes still snapped with sparks of anger and some power that Scatty often saw when he got incensed, but could never place. "Later, when I got the scroll off the shelf. I heard it, but I didn't bother with it."

Scatty nodded. "So it was there when you entered. Okay, that makes a little more sense. You sound less crazy now."

Palamedes and Will both stiffened, but said nothing.

"So...how do we start solving this?" Francis asked, looking up at them.

Palamedes stood, clapping Will on the shoulder before crossing the room to take the paper from Francis' hands.

"I don't know."


End file.
